NEW YORK: The World Trade Center Memorial Foundation (WTCMF) has hired Weber Shandwick to raise awareness during a national outreach tour for the World Trade Center memorial.

The foundation is a nonprofit that will build, own, and operate the memorial at "Ground Zero." The foundation has raised more than $300 million in private funds to date, with $165 million coming in the past six months.

WS will promote the national tour, which will include an exhibition of either renderings or models of the memorial, and stories relating to the events of 9/11. Joe Daniels, WTCMF president and CEO, said the tour cities are still to be determined.

The foundation will also work with Interpublic Group (IPG) sister agencies Octagon and Jack Morton Worldwide. Billings are undisclosed.

The IPG team was picked from nine responses to the WTCMF's formal RFP for marketing/PR/ strategic planning consulting services, submitted in February.

"The foundation was fortunate that so many great teams responded," Daniels said. "It came down to the fit with the individuals brought forward. The [IPG] team expressed that they [would] live and breathe this project."

He added that WS was successful in conveying that it would reach out to constituents beyond just the tri-state area through earned media.

Harris Diamond, CEO of both WS and IPG's Constituency Management Group, noted that the agency views this as a national assignment.

"We'll use all the skill sets we possibly can," said Diamond, "and every [type of] media possible to promote the memorial."

"What we've seen, from a donation perspective, is that the enthusiasm for - and importance of - the monument is there," Daniels added. "It's a matter of activating that enthusiasm."